Everything changed when the fire nation attacked… Honestly, that’s what it feels like writing this review. Teamgroup’s MP44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD has finally landed with me for testing, and it’s a curious little QLC number that, once upon a time, would have offered itself up as a nice, affordable, tantalizing opportunity for any would-be budget gamer’s rig. The problem is that it’s 2026, this sorta QLC feels a bit old fashioned, and SSD prices are through the roof.
It’s especially tough as we’ve seen even superb budget drives such as the WD Blue SN5100 totally hampered by an extraordinarily high price tag. And that’s a problem, a real big one, especially for Teamgroup. Side-by-side these drives, although targeted at the same audience, and with similarly high price tags (at time of writing the MP44Q is $305 and the SN5100 is $317), perform wildly differently.
The MP44Q is a sleek little budget PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. It’s a single-sided M.2 2280 design giving it broad compatibility with all of your consoles, laptops, and PCs, and comes complete in 1-4 TB capacities with no heatsink variant available.
As for that core hardware, you get a Maxiotech MAP1602A controller (a slightly older model, and the same one found inside of the Lexar NM790), and die packages built out of YMTC’s 232-layer 3D QLC NAND flash (you “might” find similar density YMTC TLC in Biwin’s Black Opal NV7400, or Micron flash who knows…). There’s no dedicated DRAM cache here, mostly to keep costs down, but you do get a healthy dose of 40 MB of system memory allocated via HMB, and a big chunk of pseudo SLC, and that’s kind of it.
There’s no drama, no new flagship parts or anything, just off-the-shelf OEM components—tried and tested and ready to go. What is interesting, however, is the endurance rating, as Teamgroup’s got this clocked at 1000 TBW, which for a budget QLC drive is quite impressive. The default rating for most SSDs these days is 600 TBW for 1 TB, and practically all manufacturers abide by that, so it’s nice to see an improvement here. Although you still get the same 5-year warranty anyway.
As for pricing, at the time of writing, it’s kind of on the high side for a budget drive, especially compared to that SN5100. The reason I’ve been slamming that comparison so hard in this review is purely because, by the metrics that matter, the SN5100 outclasses the MP44Q in almost every way while being cheaper as it does it.
Benchmarks: SSDs
Temperature Data ProductValue Teamgroup MP44Q 2 TB l Gen4 54 Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 2 TB | Gen4 61 Lexar NQ780 4 TB l Gen4 62 Biwin Black Opal NV7400 2 TB | Gen4 48 WD Black SN7100 1 TB | Gen4 48
SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s)
SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s)
RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s)
RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)
CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 Data ProductValue Teamgroup MP44Q 2 TB l Gen4 7407 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 6595 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 70 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 288 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s) Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 2 TB | Gen4 7318 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 6687 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 107 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 308 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s) Lexar NQ780 4 TB l Gen4 7446 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 6601 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 70 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 310 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s) Biwin Black Opal NV7400 2 TB | Gen4 7370 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 6336 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 75 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 229 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s) WD Black SN7100 1 TB | Gen4 7116 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 6820 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 101 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 276 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)
Total Loading Time (seconds)
Scene #1 (seconds)
Scene #2 (seconds)
Scene #3 (seconds)
Scene #4 (seconds)
Scene #5 (seconds)
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Data ProductValue Teamgroup MP44Q 2 TB l Gen4 7.97 Total Loading Time (seconds), 0.961 Scene #1 (seconds), 2.166 Scene #2 (seconds), 2.535 Scene #3 (seconds), 1.513 Scene #4 (seconds), 0.795 Scene #5 (seconds) Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 2 TB | Gen4 7.125 Total Loading Time (seconds), 0.852 Scene #1 (seconds), 1.832 Scene #2 (seconds), 2.284 Scene #3 (seconds), 1.425 Scene #4 (seconds), 0.731 Scene #5 (seconds) Lexar NQ780 4 TB l Gen4 7.869 Total Loading Time (seconds), 1.127 Scene #1 (seconds), 2.072 Scene #2 (seconds), 2.465 Scene #3 (seconds), 1.461 Scene #4 (seconds), 0.745 Scene #5 (seconds) Biwin Black Opal NV7400 2 TB | Gen4 7.398 Total Loading Time (seconds), 1.112 Scene #1 (seconds), 1.813 Scene #2 (seconds), 2.286 Scene #3 (seconds), 1.445 Scene #4 (seconds), 0.742 Scene #5 (seconds) WD Black SN7100 1 TB | Gen4 7.841 Total Loading Time (seconds), 1.831 Scene #1 (seconds), 2.411 Scene #2 (seconds), 1.498 Scene #3 (seconds), 0.755 Scene #4 (seconds), 1.347 Scene #5 (seconds)
RND4k Q1T1 Read (IOPS)
RND4K Q1T1 Write (IOPS)
CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 | RND4k Q1T1 | IOPS Data ProductValue Teamgroup MP44Q 2 TB l Gen4 17195 RND4k Q1T1 Read (IOPS), 70309 RND4K Q1T1 Write (IOPS) Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 2 TB | Gen4 26224 RND4k Q1T1 Read (IOPS), 75158 RND4K Q1T1 Write (IOPS) Lexar NQ780 4 TB l Gen4 17134 RND4k Q1T1 Read (IOPS), 75727 RND4K Q1T1 Write (IOPS) Biwin Black Opal NV7400 2 TB | Gen4 N/A WD Black SN7100 1 TB | Gen4 N/A
Index
Bandwidth (MB/s)
Average Access Time (µs)
3DMark Storage Data ProductValue Teamgroup MP44Q 2 TB l Gen4 2874 Index, 496.38 Bandwidth (MB/s), 63 Average Access Time (µs) Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 2 TB | Gen4 3915 Index, 672.63 Bandwidth (MB/s), 59 Average Access Time (µs) Lexar NQ780 4 TB l Gen4 2893 Index, 495.11 Bandwidth (MB/s), 62 Average Access Time (µs) Biwin Black Opal NV7400 2 TB | Gen4 2757 Index, 471.23 Bandwidth (MB/s), 65 Average Access Time (µs) WD Black SN7100 1 TB | Gen4 3238 Index, 553.1 Bandwidth (MB/s), 55 Average Access Time (µs)
✅ It’s on offer: If it’s really cheap, like 30% off, it could be a stunning drive to have as a secondary storage solution on your main rig (if you don’t mind slightly sluggish load times).
❌ It’s not on offer: It’s not a great time to buy an SSD, but especially a very expensive QLC one.
3DMark’s storage benchmark comes back with a score that’s 1000 points higher straight out of the gate, with a much broader bandwidth figure, and slightly lower access times. That result is all thanks to the random 4K performance. The MP44Q really struggles here, delivering just 70 MB/s on the read and 288 MB/s on the write, making it slower than even Lexar’s latest NQ780 QLC drive as well. Compare that to the 107 and 308 MB/s from the SN5100, and there’s almost no contest.
Yes, it does eek back a win in the sequential read front being 89 MB/s faster (or 1.21% faster), but that’s such a niche use-case for most of us gamers, it’s almost not worth mentioning.
That all then translates into game load times too, and although the SN5100 doesn’t particularly break any records in that department, scoring 7.125 seconds, the fact that the MP44Q lands in at 7.970 seconds is just, well, less than ideal. Physically, it’s cool, mind you, and efficient as a result, but that’s not enough to offset those massive deficits in the metrics that matter most.
